Nixon’s All Time Baseball All Star Team and the Reporter that helped win the 1972 Presidential Election!

This is a fascinating Nixon archive that originated for the estate of Washington Correspondent & RKO General broadcasting reporter Cliff Evans. The collection consists of 2 letters and a signed Baseball All-Star Teams program.

The first piece was a Pamphlet created by Nixon after an interview with Evans in where he asked the President for a Presidential All-Star team at the end of a press conference held in the Oval Office on June 22, 1972. Evans asked the president to name his favorite ballplayers. Nixon, a life-long sports fanatic, responded quickly. He named New York Yankee legend Lou Gehrig as his first baseman and put Jackie Robinson, the Brooklyn Dodgers hero, at second base. Then an idea flashed into his head, and he began to meander. Instead of naming his shortstop, he said, "You must include Mickey Mantle." Then he added.

The president spent a good deal of time working on the project in figuring out the best all-star team and ended up, with multiple combinations based on pre-war and post-war and etc.

Nixon compiled and published his all-time baseball all-star team to much press. This list helped humanize the president and did get a large amount of press and had many sports fans and players discussing the different selections and if they were correct or wrong, which garnered even more media for the president. The president when finished with the official pamphlet dated June 27, 1972.

In November 1972, Nixon won re-election in a landslide. Sports fans are fond of arguing that a certain player is better than another, and often dream of seeing one legend play with or against another. When Nixon put together his all-star selections, he gave these fans a way to relate to him.

The collection consists of one of the original printed pamphlet with the gold presidential seal on the cover and inside the Presidents, All-Star Team sent to Evans and inscribed inside to him by Nixon ‘To Cliff Evans with best wishes from another baseball fan and his friend Richard Nixon.”

A TLS to Evans with some amazing content about the interview and recites a story about getting an autograph from Babe Ruth in 1942. It says that it was the only autograph his wife ever requested in her entire life and that since Babe Ruth’s reaction, was so positive and he gave one easily that it shaped Nixon’s own policy never to refuse an autograph for the last 37 years in and out of public life! It is transcribed below in full.

“Your letter of July 8th brought back pleasant memories of the interview I gave you on the All-Time Baseball Team incidentally, my major collaborator in that project was David Eisenhower, who is really genius when it comes to recalling baseball averages, etc. He is presently completing his work on the first volume of what I believe will be the most important biography of his grandfather ever written.” Incidentally, you will be amused to learn that Mrs. Nixon who likes baseball but is not an avid fan as I am, asked for and obtained only one autograph in her entire life. It was from Babe Ruth when we were having dinner in his New York restaurant in 1942. She was greatly impressed by his courtesy when she asked for it and I must admit that remembering how he reacted to her request probably influenced me in adopting my policy of never refusing an autograph during the 37 years I have been in and out of public life. With warm regards, Richard Nixon.

The last letter is handwritten and signed by Nixon dated Oct 4, 1983, and is to Evans wife in reference to the passing of his friend of 20 years and colleague Cliff Evans and he expresses the deep personal loss and that whether it was about foreign policy, politics or baseball he covered his subject was superb professional skill. With One of a Kind Collectibles LOA

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